I'm really confused

[Joaquina]

Well, hi! 

I'm 16 and I've never had a real crush. I never really loved (romantically) anyone and people around me say "you just have high standars" "you will fall in love eventually, maybe now you are just inmature" "you have to let your feelings flow, don't repress them".

When I'm with my friends and they see a hot boy/girl i just think "Is cute" and that's all, while them say "Oh, he is really hot" "I want him to fuck me hard against the wall" or something like that (I'm from Argentina and yes, they really say that and it's really normal) 

I always tried to force myself to feel things. I had two boyfriends in my life but not because I loved them, i was with them because i wanted to feel something, i wanted to experience romantic love but it never happened. 

First I thought "Well, if I don't fall in love with man, maybe I will fall in love with a woman" but I was wrong, it was just the same. 

One day I was talking to a friend about this and she said "Maybe you are just asexual". After that I googled it and i thought "No way i can be asexual, maybe i don't really feel atraction to people but I want to have sex, i enjoy masturbation, i will enjoy sex too". Once i watched a video from an asexual boy and he was explaining that there are different tipes of asexual persons and some of asexual people enjoy sex, in that moment i was like "Why is this so confusing?". After that, i found AVEN website and i asked my question "A person who doesn't feel sexual atraction but also wants to have sex, is an asexual person?" and i get even more confused, because some people said "Yes, you can want sex and be asexual" and others said "If you want to have sex, you are feeling sexual atraction after all, so no"

Now that i'm in this website and after telling my whole story, i can ask , Am I asexual? Am I just aromantic? Or maybe am i just confused and eventually i will fall in love? How did you find out that you are aromantic and at wich age?

[Jot-Aro Kujo]

Eh, I'm a little confused as to what you're asking here... It might be better for you to try an asexual-specific site like AVEN? Not that I'm saying you're not welcome here, of course, because you totally are! But it sounds like your question is about asexuality, not aromanticism? I'm not asexual, so I don't really have any advice for you otherwise... Although some of our ace members might, but in any case what I'm trying to say is it sounds like this specific question, you could probably get better answers for on another site.

Good luck though, and welcome!

[Joaquina]

I already asked there and some people said that I should ask here too, so that's why i came here too. I don't know if I'm aromantic and also i don't know if i'm asexual

43 minutes ago, Jot-Aro Kujo said:

Eh, I'm a little confused as to what you're asking here... It might be better for you to try an asexual-specific site like AVEN? Not that I'm saying you're not welcome here, of course, because you totally are! But it sounds like your question is about asexuality, not aromanticism? I'm not asexual, so I don't really have any advice for you otherwise... Although some of our ace members might, but in any case what I'm trying to say is it sounds like this specific question, you could probably get better answers for on another site.

Good luck though, and welcome!

I already asked there and some people said that I should ask here too, so that's why i came here too. I don't know if I'm aromantic and also i don't know if i'm asexual

[Autumn]

Hi there! I responded to your post on aven, but here I feel I can give a more detailed answer. As a sex repulsed ace, on the sexuality side of your question all I can definitely say is that I have seen a lot of aces who don't mind/like sex without feeling the actual attraction, so if you have never felt the desire to have sex with someone then there is a decent chance you are aspec.

 

On the aro side of things, I can say a lot more. As for how and when I discovered I was ace and later aro was that I never had crushes either. In middle school everyone was dating, talking about dating or breakups, etc, while I thought they were being dramatic weirdos because I had no interest in any of that. High school is more so when I really started experimenting with the ace label mentally, and over time it became more and more comfortable. I wasn't too worried about my romantic orientation since I had no intention to date, but eventually I became more aware/accepting, partially by acknowledging that once you're in high school you are mostly past the 'late bloomer' stage. Now I fully accept I'm aro, and if I do get a crush someday then well guess I'm greyro and that will be fine too.

 

So, you do sound aro or greyro to me, and possibly ace. Aro people get told they 'just have high standards' and the like all the time unfortunately, since people seem to have a hard time grasping the idea that someone might not want romance (or sex for certain types of aces). I know no one usually believed me in middle school when I said I wasn't interested in romance, or else thought it was weird. But I assure you it is entirely normal, at any age, and if identifying as such gives you any feeling of clarity after trying it out mentally, then you can use it, even if it does someday change. 

 

Hopefully this helps somewhat!

[Holmbo]

I totally always thought I had "high standards" as teen and young adult. It wasn't until I met a guy who I really connected with personally and found attractive but still didn't feel any romantic feelings for, that I thought "wait a minute, there's something very strange going on here"